


this, this makes it all worth it

by Anna_Blume



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fictober 2020, Season 1, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:41:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26988403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Blume/pseuds/Anna_Blume
Summary: "When she wakes up right before dawn, she’s paralyzed by shame. She's ashamed of her own weakness. Of what she saw them doing. She hears a creak in the staircase and she knows it’s Offred on her way back up. She hears her movements, the rustle of her dress as thin against the silence of the night as a shadow cast by moonlight."
Relationships: Nick Blaine/June Osborne | Offred
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	this, this makes it all worth it

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what I did here. This came to me and demanded to be written and I succumbed and please don't hit me if this sucks.  
> Title comes from the Fictober 2020 prompt list - no. 21 “this, this makes it all worth it.”  
> As I am not a native English speaker, mistakes are forthcoming.

She slips inside, closing the door carefully behind her, not wanting the glass to clink too loudly, the sound of the metal frame to bounce across the yard, summoning an overzealous or bored Guardian - two ends of the same spectrum, both equally dangerous. There’s a crate in the corner where the chair cushions for the garden set are packed away and she feels for it, lifts the lid when her fingers recognize its edge. She tugs one cushion out, throws it into the barely visible corner between the elevated flower patch and the stoop in front of her working table, scattered now with gardening tools and dirt Rita had still not cleaned up. She grabs the wooden edge of the patch and in the darkness, she can make out the glinting edges of leaves, the barely gray dots of buds nestling sparsely in between. She hates every single one of them.  


She turns her back to the lush and slides down onto the cushion, presses her back into the corner as if into an embrace of a lover. From the folds of her capacious cardigan, now the color of anthracite as everything else around her, she pulls out the bottle, which just a moment ago, hung heavy in the knitted pocket, bobbing against her stomach as she hurried across the yard. The glass is colder now against her palms than the air around her. She breathes out a misty breath as she twists the cap until the seal brakes with a metallic crack, and takes a swig. She cannot see the liquid’s golden tinge, but she can taste it on her tongue, and her mouth fills with sunshine. She hisses into her fist as the alcohol burns down her throat.  


She turns the bottle in her hands and close to her eyes, rocks it in her palm until the golden lettering catches a glint from some dim light outside. _El Jimador._ She plucked it from an opened crate in the basement, where good boy Nick had carried it down like a secret. A kickback Fred had drooled over already. He had probably taken a bottle to his bedroom, which would explain why the crate was open. Or maybe it was good boy Nick who helped himself to one.  


She sights and takes another swig. How disappointed she is in him. Of course he thinks with his penis, like each and every one of them. Like she hadn’t noticed how he's been looking at Offred since...  


She shoves the thought away together with the lump she insists on leaving unnamed, but which appears in her throat every time she thinks of that afternoon and the steady squeak of Nick’s bed.  


She shoves all the thoughts away, all the thoughts that brought her here, into this dark, damp glasshouse filled with life she does not want. What she said during the meeting. What she said during dinner. What she said to Fred and how he brushed her off, like an annoying but harmless insect. The sex they had a couple of nights ago? His way of giving her a treat before he punishes her again. Not worth the prayers of penitence.  


She does not know how she could optimize herself better to fit the picture he created of her in his mind, how she could better project herself onto the outside world, so that he would acknowledge her worth. She feels doubt crawl up her throat again and she takes another swig, a large gulp, and drowns that worm. For now.  


She tips her head back against the wooden frame of the plot, hoping there are no bugs or spiders on it, then not gives a damn anymore. Let them get lost in her hair. Her breaths come out slower, longer, hotter as the alcohol warms her up inside. She closes her eyes, listens to the rustle of the night. A car passes slowly in the distance. Wind touches half-dried leaves of the tree in the yard and they break off, fall onto the wet ground. An owl hoots somewhere close. Then a clink. A click of a door.  


She snaps her eyes open, the darkness she sees almost indistinguishable from the one behind her closed eyelids. She holds her breath, strains her ears.  


Nothing.  


She breathes again, barely, but there’s nothing still. Maybe it wasn’t a door at all. Probably a shutter or a window. She looks at the bottle again. The liquid inside tastes better than Jose Cuervo - the Ambassador knows her tequila. She takes one last swig and considers what to do with the rest. She decides to put it into the crate with the chair cushions. It will keep her warm when the late afternoons turn into late evenings and her fingers get stiff from the cold, damp soil.  


She lets another moment stretch before she gets up and hides the bottle, picks up the cushion from the ground, and quietly pushes it inside the crate. Her strained movements and the alcohol make her woozy and she steadies herself, leans against the edge of the crate. A thin sheen of sweat spreads across her upper lip and she wipes it off with the back of her hand. And then the thought clicks, just as the door did just a moment ago. Because yes, it was a door.  


Anger bubbles inside her and white heat makes her insides contract. They take her for a fool, just as Fred does. They think she’s unaware of the world around her, of their dark connection, of their sinful ways. Of how Offred’s eyes turn to honey for a fraction of a second when she sees Nick. Of how Nick’s eyes follow the hem of Offred’s dress as he lowers his gaze with contrived deference in her presence.  


Her grip on the crate becomes like vice, the needlelike splinters of the old, worn wood push into the pads of her fingertips and she bites down, her jaws pushing painfully against each other until she cannot take it anymore. She pants and her nostrils flare with hot exhales but she slows them down, she calms herself down.  


Her child will be born out of this sin, she knows that. She knew it from the beginning. She has to let it happen, let them burn that thin layer of lust. It will be all ashes sooner than they both expect, because, like beauty, it’s merely skin-deep.  


A deep breath, then another, and she pushes the door open. The night is cold but also damp, the air turning heavy with milky mist, the afternoon rain an afterthought glistening on the ground. She moves outside, her body tense, her movements careful, but her mind is warm again, swimming in spirits. She walks up the three little steps, which lead to the path by the fence, separating the main yard from the garage. Nick’s windows appear between the dark skeletons of tree branches like three golden eyes looking down at her. She slows down, pulls the cardigan tighter around herself.  


Of course the blinds are closed. _Thank God_ the blinds are closed, she wouldn’t want to know what they were doing in there. Still, uninvited images flash before her eyes, her mind zaps through them like TV-channels. Naked bodies in weird constellations, acrobatic positions. Pushing. Pulling. Undulating. Bouncing. The slapping sound of skin on skin, the squish and slosh of body liquids. The moans and groans and gasps and cries. How silly it all is, how simple. Primitive. Lewd.  


She slows down to a stop.  


The blind on the door is crooked or faulty because from one little corner, light seeps through and outside, and it looks like it’s solid, like someone painted it on the air in gentle brushstrokes. It is a hand that reaches for her, and she feels it tugging at her curiosity.  


She is drunk. She must be, because she’s letting it pull her. This is a hand of the devil and she takes it, creeps along the fence to the gate, then down the steps, and to the flight of stairs that hugs the side of the garage. She slips off her shoes, sneaks up the cold metal steps. The railing hides tiny pools of water on its uneven surface and she rubs her hand dry on her skirt. She sits down carefully on the landing right by the door, the devil by her side. She pats down on a spot next to her, invites him to sit down as well. She’ll apply proper penance later. She’ll pay when she’s sober, so that she can really feel the pain. Now, she looks.  


And looks away.  


But the image stays even behind her rapidly closed eyelids.  


Naked bodies. She expected that. Nick is one long log stretched across the bed, his calves and feet stick over the side of the mattress. Offred sits on top of him, her back to him.  


They fuck. If Offred doesn’t even look at him, they must be simply fucking. She expected that, too. The savageness of the sin. The carnality of it. So why did she look away?  


Her companion says, _Look again._  


She takes a deep breath, turns to the triangle of light again. Her eyes focus, the picture sharpens.  


The space seems warmer than on that rainy afternoon, luscious. Soft light from various lamps around the room envelopes them in tones of blush and orange. She cannot hear them, only the roar of her own blood.  


They move like one. Offred rocks herself slowly over Nick’s lap, her arms rest loosely on her thighs, her hands slide over Nick’s legs, stroke them time and again. There is an ease to her movements, some calm fluidity. Her hips tip forward then back again, like water lapping on the shore. Her breasts are heavy and they sway only gently, her nipples dark, dark. Nick has his hands on Offred’s hips but they’re neither gripping nor resting. They’re catching and releasing, fingers inching into the crease between Offred’s thigh and stomach, then sliding back to her buttocks and forward again, pressing lightly into the flesh in the same order from pinky to index, as if he were tapping on a table or piano keys. For a moment, his palms hold Offred’s hips, and then she rocks away.  


The angle they’re in does not allow her to see below the horizon of the dark triangle between Offred’s legs, and she’s relieved about that. Thankful, even.  


She ventures a look at Nick’s face and he’s his usual self. His eyelids hang low but then he sweeps a look over Offred’s back, takes in the tangle of her silvery hair that moves in the same rhythm as their bodies, and he’s a different man. He’s not the one who greets her cordially every morning, who hauls her bags and gently pushes the brakes when the light turns yellow, where Fred would step on the gas. She looks and looks, and cannot put her finger on what he is, how he is. There’s no lust in his features, which surprises her. No, the lust is there, it’s just not a dominant kind of lust, it doesn’t have that barrel-through-the-intersection-in-the-last-possible-moment kind of energy. It seems... contained. Like he’s letting it build quietly, holding it back on purpose.  


Offred tips her head back and her hair comes further down, where it brushes over her buttocks and Nick’s hands. He stretches his thumbs out and lets the twisted wisps caress his fingertips. He looks up then, to the back of Offred’s head, and his eyes glitter with adoration, as bright as if he were looking right into her eyes. Offred straightens up and his hands are empty again, his thumbs in the air with nothing to touch.  


Her eyes wander up Offred’s arms and shoulders to her face, and it’s Offred she’s never seen before. She’s bright. Soft. Her eyelids hang low, almost closed, her lips barely parted.  


She looks away from that face, the bliss she sees there nothing she’s ever expected. Nothing she’s ever expected Offred to be capable of. She swallows, the sheen of sweat suddenly there again right above her lip. She looks down at her hands clasped in her lap like a schoolgirl’s, moves them to grip the cold edge of the landing. After another deep breath, she looks again.  


Nick lets Offred sway one, two, three more times, and then he pushes his thumbs deeply into the white dough of her hips. Instantly, Offred tips her head back and her hair caresses his hands again. She smiles as if she knew his intention exactly. He smirks as if he knew how transparent he was. Offred starts speeding up then, slowly, gradually, and Nick’s grip on her hips steadies. The softness gives way to taut muscles now working towards one goal. Offred’s hands stop their caresses over Nick’s legs and her fingers dig into the flesh of her own thighs. Her mouth falls open then, but her eyes stay softly closed, and the resemblance in her posture is uncanny. Receiving of a communion. A Eucharist.  


A twinge of conscience and her cheeks burn with shame for drawing this connection, but she keeps looking. She feels the devil’s hand on the back of her neck where the hairs stand on end, electrified. His other hand lies heavy on her stomach, where the flame rises with hot, silky licks. She keeps looking.  


Offred rocks her hips in precise, almost identical movements, until she shudders and quakes in waves above Nick’s solid, strung-out body.  


She’s jealous of the feeling, of the match finally striking right and igniting all that sparks, all that liquid fire. Yes, she’s jealous, because her own hips tip and she pushes her pelvis into the rough metal of the landing. What she feels is but a fraction of what’s possible, a match sliding down the sulfur strip, barely throwing a spark. But Offred... Offred looks as though she’d received the wafer and along with it, her absolution.  


Nick sits up slowly, reaching his arm around Offred's waist, pulling her tightly against his chest as she becomes soft again, loose and heavy. She lets him gather her to him, lets him lay her down across his chest as he lays back down onto the mattress. Offred pulls her legs from under herself and the pain must be stinging in her knees when she stretches them, because, for a moment, sheclenches her eyes. Nick brings his legs up, brackets her hips with them, cradles her with his whole body as she tucks her head under his chin, strokes his cheek and jaw absently with her hand, and he leans into her touch, closes his eyes. A moment later, she slips off his chest with what looks like a giggle and he catches her, moves her legs across his as if she was lying across his lap. She reaches a hand to him, rests it on his chest.  


The crumpled white sheets, the naked bodies bathed in warm light, the serenity vibrating in Offred’s face, the quiet adoration in Nick’s. So naive. So weak. And yet... She could swear she’s letting the devil have a field day with her, because again, she cannot deny the resemblance. What she sees is like a sacred painting, like the one which hung in the little church on the island, which she admired as a little girl. They're like a version of Pieta in reverse.  


Pietas are forbidden now. In that sense, the comparison fits perfectly.  


But of course Offred is neither a martyr nor a savior, Nick not a quiet witness of her suffering. This is where the devil pulls you in, where he sets up his trap - he shows sin as having soft edges, haloed in tenderness. The picture before her eyes only blurs the reality, which is that they are lost in their unrighteous ways. It would be so easy to bust in there, tell them the truth of what they really are. “You whore,” she would finally spit out to Offred. And to Nick, she would say, “And you. I thought you had values. But you look at her like she means something, like she’s everything!”  


Something splits inside her suddenly, unexpectedly. She splits down the middle like a pea pod and tears spring out of her eyes and rush down her cheeks. She turns away and looks blankly into the thick, milky air, and her ears feel dulled, as if her head was wrapped in cotton.  


The devil is not there anymore. She is alone in the misty cocoon of the night.  


One last time, she looks inside.  


Nick flips Offred onto her back, moves above her and moves inside her. She touches his cheek and when he starts rocking slowly, so very slowly, into her, they kiss. Their mouths move as if they knew each other by heart. Light catches on the wet surfaces of their tongues, their lips. It glints off their eyes, which steal glances as they break apart to catch their breaths, which lock when he rests his forehead onto hers, and then they begin again.  


Offred’s hand on Nick’s back, shoulder blades, gliding down, fingernails scraping over his buttocks. His arched back, his open-mouth kisses on her breasts cupped in his hands. Her legs cradling his hips. His thumb skimming her bottom lip, pushing on her chin, making her mouth fall open. He dives in deep, moves to her neck, shoulder, collarbone. All the while, they move easily, fluidly, with certainty.  


One more time, she thinks of them as one. One body, one organism, one shared nervous system, as if a flat, waxy ribbon of nerves connected them, not his body filling hers. His touch on her cheek is like an electric signal that runs a lap, comes back to him as her pull on his hip. Her pull on his hip comes back as his hand cupping her buttock, pulling her closer to him. This comes back to him as her nip at his bottom lip. And so it goes, in endless circles.  


But when Nick lifts himself up on one arm, when Offred arches beneath him as he starts rocking faster into her, it becomes too much.  


She feels the burn inside her where the reality scrapes her raw, like a burn of a freshly skinned knee. She wishes for another swig of tequila as she moves soundlessly down the stairs and back into the house, into her own bedroom. She undresses in the bathroom, goes through her nightly routine as if her mind wasn’t playing what she’d witnessed back there on a constant loop, making her tremble inside.

When she wakes up right before dawn, she’s paralyzed by shame. She's ashamed of her own weakness. Of what she saw them doing. Of them being so unashamed. She feels the weight of their sin because now, she is a part of it, in more ways than she’s ever imagined. She feels shame that she will have to let them continue, bear the weight with them. Under her own roof.  


She hears a creak in the staircase and she knows it’s Offred on her way back up. She hears her movements, the rustle of her dress as thin against the silence of the night as a shadow cast by moonlight. She remembers Offred’s face, flushed and beaming, yet now it elicits a different kind of spark inside her. White and cold it shoots through her, locking her jaw, clenching her fists.  


As if Offred’s ability to bear children wasn’t enough.  


She feels foolish for thinking she saw some true affection between Nick and the Handmaid, some genuine connection. It was lust, pure and simple.  


No, not pure. Filthy.  


The way she sees it, Offred giving away her baby will be her only shot at salvation, and it will be Offred’s own responsibility to see that God forgives her.  


But this child - feeling its weight in her own arms, touching the softest of hair on its head, bringing it up the right way. This will be her own salvation.  


This, this makes it all worth it.  


Praise be.


End file.
